With conservative styling that belies a six-figure price tag, Toyota’s Japan-only Century limousine is a wheeled manifestation of modesty. With five mufflers, bystanders would never guess that the whisper-quiet second-generation model was powered by a 5.0-liter, naturally aspirated V12—an engine just begging for room to breathe.
That’s exactly what YouTube user effspot gave a used Century, which he claimed to have purchased for $4,500, all in the name of spending an additional $18,000 on an exhaust supplied by Japanese exotic car specialist Brilliant Exhaust. This shop is the same one that fabricated a Formula 1-style setup for effspot’s Mercedes-Benz S600 late last year, the result being an S-class with an exhaust note like that of a Pagani Zonda. Unsurprisingly, the Century sounds similarly supercar-y when shouting at the top of its lungs, though its raspier exhaust note is less reminiscent of an Italian exotic and more of a straight-piped BMW.
The free-flowing exhaust also fails to turn the approximately 4,400-pound Century into a missile, as Toyota never engineered this ultra-luxury sedan with performance in mind. Its 5.0-liter “1GZ-FE” V12 never officially produced more than 276 horsepower and 355 pound-feet of torque, and some of the extra power possibly freed up by this exhaust would’ve still disappeared on its way through the Century’s four-speed automatic transmission.
Even so, it proves the Century’s V12 has loads of engine swap potential. What was that about a four-cylinder Supra again?
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